All posts by Barbara Nevins Taylor

Green New Deal: What’s Old Is New Again

May 16th, 2019 2 Comments

by Nick Taylor

Spring blooms in Hyde Park on the Hudson River and Franklin D. Roosevelt must be smiling in his grave. Fighting the Great Depression of the 1930s, he created a “new deal for the American people” that unlocked their access to the great bounties of our country. Now a new generation calls for a Green New Deal. A smart, bold Green New Deal can use the Roosevelt playbook in the same way.

First, Roosevelt jumped on bold ideas.

He created the Civilian Conservation Corps that sent young men to restore national parks and forests where they planted three billion trees.

Green New Deal What's Old Is New Again — North Dakota Civil Conservation Corps Workers, Public Domain Photo

His Tennessee Valley Authority built dams that electrified rural Appalachia and lifted the region out of abject poverty.

He backed a plan to generate electricity from the rise and fall of the tides in Passamaquoddy Bay in northern Maine. Congress ultimately blocked it but today Scotland draws hydropower from the tides with turbines anchored to the floor of the North Sea.

Men Drilling for Passamaquoddy Tidal Power Project, Photo by Dexter P. Cooper, National Archives, Public Domain

The New Deal’s job-creating engine, the Works Progress Administration, put men and women to work in every county, state and U.S. territory.

In Ohio, in a precursor of the Green New Deal, miners cut gaps in coal seams to extinguish an underground fire that had been burning, spewing methane and carbon dioxide, for more than fifty years.

Workers paved roads and improved sidewalks, repaired bridges, installed new water lines and built hospitals, stadiums, schools and golf courses.

Teachers laid off by impoverished local school boards taught for WPA paychecks. Bookbinders repaired tattered books in libraries and schools. Artists painted murals, writers chronicled the times.

In eastern Kentucky, women loaded saddlebags with magazines, books and catalogues and carried them on mules to isolated families and schools.

All this work brought new hope to an America in despair from the Depression, when 25 percent of workers had no jobs, homeless families lived in shantytowns, and city food lines stretched for blocks.

Real change followed on the heels of hope. Social Security and unemployment compensation created pensions and security for workers. Union collective bargaining raised wages. Banking laws protected depositors and encouraged homebuyers. Price supports and enforced crop rotation restored the depleted farmlands of the Dust Bowl.

A smart, bold Green New Deal can use the Roosevelt playbook in the same way. The New Deal showed Americans what it was doing. People saw the thousand small ways their communities improved, and that produced support for the big programs that followed.

Local initiative is the second takeaway.

FDR’s New Dealers believed people at ground level understood better than Washington what their communities needed. Federal dollars (mostly) paid for the flurry of transformative work around the country, but the idea for those projects bubbled up from state and city governments and even some private entities. This removed the work from the taint of national arguments over ideology. Nobody from someplace far away, some fancy orator with a point to prove, was shoving anything down people’s throats.

Critics scoffed and called many of these jobs “boondoggles,” a term for make-work tasks of little value. Cartoonists drew “WPA shovels” equipped with fold-down seats and arm rests. But thousands of these sturdily-built projects, maintained and restored, remain part of the American landscape. Many of us learned in WPA-built classrooms, read in WPA libraries, and camped at CCC-built campgrounds that will serve generations yet to come.

None of this was easy. FDR faced virulent critics. Boondoggles was a gentle word compared to most. “Socialism!” was much scarier, and conservatives blared it every chance they got to suggest that a government that was simply doing a good job aimed to take away their “freedom.” But Roosevelt and his team kept their eyes on the important things and pushed ahead.

That’s the third point. Conservatives have no new ammunition, so they dusted off their one-word arsenal from eighty years ago to lob at the Green New Dealers. They hope the same scare tactics will distract voters from the abundant evidence that calls for action, fast. But today’s New Dealers have the ear of younger generations and a better story. It’s a story about hard work and changes that can sweep the nation and improve home towns. Americans who believe in a future that their country, its children, and the world deserve are listening.

For more about the WPA, read my American-Made: The Enduring Legacy of the WPA, When FDR Put the Country To Work.

Consumer News, Featured Stories, First Person

Gardening Generation To Generation

May 12th, 2019 4 Comments

by Barbara Nevins Taylor

Who knows if the love of gardening is genetic? Does the feel for beautiful flowers and plants pass from one generation to the next? I do know that even on a rainy, cool May day when my garden continues to shrug off winter and breathe itself back to life, I smile and give thanks to my mother and grandmother for inspiring me to take pleasure in flowers and plants.

Our grandma, crippled with arthritis for as long as I knew her, gardened inside. Mom tended her beautiful backyard garden just a few houses away in Laurelton, Queens.

gardening passion generation to generation — Mother liked this photo because she was with her daughters. That’s me on the left and my sister Hope Tudanger on the right.

Grandma filled her sunporch window sills with snake plants, aloe and cacti. Like pets, they rubbed up against her as she worked her ancient Singer treadle sewing machine. She watered and fussed with the greenery and shrugged off any suggestion from her grown children that maybe she had too many “ugly” plants.

Mom’s garden was something else. In the summer when we opened the kitchen windows and hung wash on the line, the fresh scent of flowers and trees filled our small kitchen

A splashy red rambling rose bush sprawled crazily across the back fence. Tiger lilies bloomed underneath and alongside the big rambler, and a sickle pear tree with sweet fruit bloomed in the corner.

Whenever my sister Hope and I drove past the house we left as young adults, we shook our heads, amazed that on this postage stamp-sized property our mom created a garden filled with beauty.

My memory sees a garden-lover’s plan. It wasn’t just a jumble of plants, but an understanding of order with a bit of chaos stirred in. A pussy willow lolled along a side fence. Then came perfumed tea roses with flame-like petals in a neat row of bushes. A rose with soft pink petals blossomed beside yellow roses and another with lavender blooms and yet another soft red. A giant peony exploded into a blur of pink under a pear tree that almost leaned into our house.

A gnarly apple tree grew on the other side of the patch of grass we called a lawn. It shaded purple hydrangeas that stretched out along a narrow bed under its branches. A patch of cement led to our junk-filled garage and on the other side, along a fence, mom planted purple and white irises, lilies of the valley and a small tree she called an orange blossom.

She always did most of the gardening herself. She would say, “My husband says, ‘I garden to the best of my wife’s ability.'” Years after they divorced, she repeated his self-indictment and his praise for her talent. She loved that garden and it showed.

Things changed for her and us. She moved from Laurelton, realized different dreams and accomplished different things. But almost until her last days at 95, like her mother she found places for small green plants indoors and kept alive her passion and interest in growing something green and beautiful.

She also, somehow, infused me with the passion. And for that and many other things, I’m grateful.

Consumer News, Featured Stories, Money News, News, Scam News

When Thieves Steal From Your Bank Account

April 29th, 2019

Checking bank statements may not top your list of fun things to do. But when thieves steal from your bank account you need to know right away and report the theft immediately. It’s likely your bank won’t alert you, or make good on the loss if you don’t act quickly. A smart woman who learned this the unpleasant way drove the point home to us when she reached out to ConsumerMojo.com for help.

The Atlanta resident — we’ll call her Sandy — emailed and explained that thieves stole $3,000 from a small business account she had with SunTrust, or maybe it was one thief. She didn’t bank online, but used the account to pay a couple of recurring monthly bills through separate automatic debits. Sandy said she was shocked to find that money was transferred out of her account with an unauthorized debit.

When she began to think about how it could have happened, she remembered that a couple of months earlier a check she mailed to pay a bill was stolen. “I assumed the person who stole the check used my information to steal from my bank account,” she said. As soon as Sandy discovered the problem, she went to a SunTrust branch to get help.

A banker looked up her account and saw two additional fraudulent debits and told Sandy the bank would cover the loss for all three thefts. “I asked them to close my account, and I opened a new one with the bank to transfer the money I had left,” she said.

Sandy didn’t check her bank statements again for more than two months. When she did, she saw the $3,000 fraudulent debit on the old account, which she thought had been closed.

But the legal burden was on Sandy to report the theft immediately. Her late discovery and late reporting threatened to cause her to lose her money. But we’ll get to that in a minute.

The Federal Reserve Board reports that bank account fraud is on the rise and it’s studying the problem of electronic transfer fraud, wire fraud and check fraud. In 2018 it found that because there’s more electronic banking on a variety of devices there’s a rise in thefts. Scammers stole $8.34 billion through electronic transfers in 2015, the last year for which it has statistics. That’s up from $6.10 billion in 2012.

Banks operate by a set of rules that consumers might not understand or realize exist. The burden of reporting a theft falls to the consumer. “Consumers need to report unauthorized charges if they see them,” Lauren Saunders of the National Consumer Law Center told us.

That means you are responsible for flagging fraud or thefts in your accounts according the the Federal Reserve’s Electronic Funds Transfer Act

Small and medium-sized businesses also have seen a rise in electronic theft. But the rules for reporting if you want to recover money are much tougher. Many banks and financial institutions belong to the National Automated Clearing House Association (NACHA), the organization that manages the electronic payment system and sets rules that you find in the small print when you open an account.

1. If you have a business account you may have just 24 hours to report a theft. This could vary depending upon your bank, but don’t count on it.

SunTrust told Sandy that she didn’t report the loss within a 24-hour period and so she was out of luck and $3,000. In a letter rejecting her claim, it said that her money was transferred to another business, or B2B. The letter said, “…based on NACHA rules a return request for a B2B transaction must be submitted within 24 hours.”

We reached out to SunTrust and pointed out that Sandy told us she had asked the bank to close the account targeted by thieves. Apparently that didn’t happen quickly enough. SunTrust promised to investigate.

We followed up and Hugh Suhr of the SunTrust media relations team emailed, “We’re continuing to look into the matter and will communicate directly with our client about it.” A little more than a week later Sandy went to a SunTrust bank and reviewed her new account. She found a refund for $3,000.

“I’m thrilled,” she told ConsumerMojo.com. “I had lost all hope of getting the bank to do the right thing.

The bottom line for everyone, individual consumers and business people:

- Check your accounts every day.
- Report losses immediately.
- Put the report in writing.
- Keep a record of your communications with the bank.
If you don’t get satisfaction, you can file a complaint with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). Under the Trump administration the CFPB is no longer a strong consumer advocate. But if enough people complain, someone has to listen. Right?

Books, Featured Stories

Spring Audiobook Listening

April 24th, 2019

My spring audiobook recommendations tilt toward the mystery-thriller genres, but you’ll also find historical fiction and an inventive literary work on the list. All of the audiobooks I like have strong stories, good writing and terrific narration with voices you don’t mind having in your head. The creaky women’s voices popular today distract me and seem hard to understand. Full disclosure here: I return a lot of books. That’s something you can do for free on Audible.

I rejoice and settle in for a great listen when I hear women like the actors in There There, the first novel by Tommy Orange. The clever writing, sharp storytelling and excellent narration made it a spring audiobook standout. The New York Times and the Washington Post put the book on their lists of bests for 2018.

Orange, an enrolled member of the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes, takes us into the world of the urban Indian, or “Native,” as many of his twelve characters say. Each speaks in the present tense and tells funny, heartbreaking, maddening stories about their struggles with life and identity. We also get a sweeping sense of history and the lingering affects of the colonizers’ drive against Native Americans. At first the characters and their stories seem disconnected and you wonder where Orange will take you. But he twists and turns and keeps you in suspense, laughing and frightened as he weaves his magic and pulls the characters together as they all head for the Big Oakland Powwow. I won’t spoil it. But the meaning of home and the city of Oakland, California, play central roles.

The book’s title comes from a Gertrude Stein quote. A character describes how most people get it all wrong. Stein wasn’t panning Oakland, he explains. Stein’s family moved to Oakland in 1880 when she was six. She left at 17 but came back to give a talk in 1935. She looked around and saw her family home, farm and orchard replaced by dozens of houses. She reflected, in her autobiography, with all beautiful things she remembered gone, for her in Oakland “there is no there there.” It is very much “there” for Orange and his characters.

Narrators Darrell Dennis, Shaun Taylor-Corbett, Alma Ceurvo and Kyla Garcia do an outstanding job making the characters into real people.

I admit that I was queasy about reading a book about a man who tattooed numbers on Jews for the Germans. But the story The Tattooist of Auschwitz, by Heather Morris, with narration by Richard Armitage, won me over quickly. I listened to this harrowing love story rooting for the optimism and charm of the hero. The story is based on the true story of Slovakian Holocaust survivor Ludwig, or Lale, Sokolov.

In the novel Lale Eisenberg finds himself in Auschwitz forced to tattoo others, and to do much more, to stay alive. Armitage gives a low-key performance as Lale, his love Gita and all the other characters. His work won him, and the book, the 2019 Best Fiction Audi Award from the Audiobook Publishers Association (APA).

Be prepared. The history, the story and the evil cruelty infuriates, frustrates and keeps you worrying about Lale and Gita’s chances for survival. Ultimately, one comes away in awe of how human beings can survive in a senselessly savage, inhumane world.

Career of Evil by Robert Galbraith, narrated by Robert Glennister, is the second book in the Cormoran Strike series written by J.K. Rowling. For some reason I listened out-of-order and enjoyed The Silkworm first. But no matter, it is perfect for the spring audiobook list. If you like a good complicated plot that delivers at every turn and features compelling characters, you’ll like Career of Evil.

Cormoran Strike and Robin Ellacot hunt for a killer who sends body parts to their London office. The search will keep you on edge and nervously jiggling your legs. Almost everything seems surprising. The story plays out agains the backdrop of the personal struggles of Strike and Robin. He’s a former Royal Army military police officer, who lost part of a leg to an IED in Afghanistan. Robin struggles with uncertainty about her upcoming marriage and she and Strike dance around the sexual tension between them.

The body parts pile up as police join the hunt for the Shaklewell Ripper and the appealing characters find themselves at risk repeatedly. Through the harrowing story tinged with romance, Robert Glennister inhabits the characters and creates a believable world.

Lethal White, also by Robert Galbraith and narrated by Robert Glenister, came at just the right time. When I finished Career of Evil, I jumped at the opportunity to remain in the Cormoron Strike world and downloaded Lethal White. It’s the fourth and most recent book in the series.

J.K. Rowling, using the Galbraith pseudonym, builds another multi-layered story. This one revolves around corrupt members of Parliament, opportunistic socialists and a greedy, dysfunctional upper class family. The 2012 Olympics in London serve as the backdrop as MPs try to use the Olympics to their advantage.

It begins when Billy Knight, an unstable young man, bursts into Strikes’ office and tells him he thinks he witnessed a murder when he was a child. He infers the killer was his brother Jimmy, an anti-Semitic radical socialist.

When Billy disappears, Strike and Robin Ellacot, now his partner, try to find him. At the same time they launch an investigation for a Conservative member of Parliament.

Strike’s success as a detective has made him too famously recognizable to play an open role in the case. So Robin goes undercover to work for MP Jasper Chiswell and finds evidence that the husband of the sports minster, in the office next door, is blackmailing Chiswell. At the same time, Robin struggles with her failing marriage and symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder she suffers as result of their last investigation.

Class and the culture wars underpin the plot. Billy Knight’s memory of the killing leads Strike to his parliamentary client’s estate. There the greedy, spoiled, dysfunctional Chiswell family contrasts sharply with the working class people who live on their property. There’s also tension between the MP’s children, daughters called Izzy and Fizzy, their nutty stepmother Kinvara, and half-brother Raf, the child of an Italian mother. And then there is a murder.

Robert Glennister, again, does a perfect job keeping the characters living and breathing through the labyrinth of the plot. He also does a fine job keeping the sexual tension between Robin and Strike simmering.

The Punishment She Deserves, by Elizabeth George and narrated by Simon Vance, also won an Audi Award for best mystery. Lethal White and Robert Glennister were finalists in this category and I would have chosen Glennister.

Nevertheless, fans of the Lynley novels will enjoy the nuanced, quick-paced mystery that takes Barbara Havers and Chief Inspector Isabel Ardery to Shropshire to investigate the suicide, or possible murder, of a popular deacon. Ardery investigates while she struggles with alcohol as she tries to prevent her ex-husband from taking her sons to live in Australia. Havers struggles to keep her job with the Met, but discovers that Ardery’s eagerness to get the case finished and return to London leaves questions unanswered. Enter Lynley who with Havers begins a thorough investigation that will solve the case.

Familiar characters like Simon St. James and his wife Debra make late appearances in the book. Winston Nkata also turns up and Assistant Commissioner Sir David Hillier continues his political manipulation and efforts to advance himself.

Simon Vance doesn’t really sound like the Lynley that I imagine, but he does do a great job with the other characters including the townspeople in the middle of a culture war and the villains who hide in plain sight.

Here’s a bit of self-promotion. But first a couple of reviews that appear on Audible. “The narrator did an excellent job!!! “I liked it! And another. “The narration was great and kept you entertained.”

Of Shame and Joy, by Lawrence Block and narrated by Barbara Nevins Taylor. Here’s one of mine. Lawrence Block, the mystery writer, also writes in a variety of genres using different names. He wrote this coming-of-age love story in 1960 and brought it out of retirement as an audiobook. It’s billed as erotic. But it’s not really. It has all the hallmarks of a classic romance. It just happens to be between two women.

Enjoy what suits you on the Spring audiobook list and let me know what you think.

And here are some other audiobook suggestions.

Banking News, Featured Stories, Latest News, Money News, News, Scam News

Did Citibank Discriminate Against You?

March 29th, 2019

If you took a mortgage loan from Citibank, from August 2011 to April 2015, it’s possible Citi discriminated against you and you didn’t get the financial breaks you deserved. The Office the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) found that the bank did not make sure loan officers told all customers about mortgage discounts available to them.

The bank had set up a program for customers who banked with them regularly. It offered these customers who applied for a mortgage, a discount on closing costs, or an interest rate deduction. But the bank’s written policy wasn’t clear and apparently some loan officers went their own way. They made arbitrary decisions and discriminated against people to whom they offered the discounts. Not everyone who qualified got the same deal.

Citibank discovered the problem during an internal review and reported it to the Comptroller of the Currency, which regulates banks. “The errors affected borrowers across gender, race and ethnicity. Citi has no tolerance for discrimination in any form. Across its products, Citi provides equal access and opportunity for credit for applicants, regardless of race, ethnicity and gender and is committed to ensuring that customers are treated fairly,” Citibank said in a news release.

No criminal charges were filed. But as a result of an agreement with Comptroller of the Currency, Citibank must repay $24 million to 24,000 customers who didn’t get the full benefits they deserved.

The Comptroller of the Currency also required Citibank to pay a $25 million dollar civil fine to the federal government.

The bank said, “We apologize to our customers for the errors and are pleased to have the matter resolved.”

If you think Citibank owes you money let them know. Here’s a number you can call 1-800-283-7918.

In the years before the Trump administration took over, The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau aggressively investigation bank fraud and discrimination. The CFPB required banks, including Citi, to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in restitution and fines. State attorneys general also pursued banks that cheated customers and levied large fines.

The CFPB has slowed its enforcement under the Trump Administration. But the CFPB still is a good place to complain if you think you have been cheated or discriminated against by a bank.

55 Plus News, All 55 Plus, Featured Stories, Healthcare, Helpful Tips: Insurance, Medicare

Medicare’s Wellness Visit Isn’t The Same As An Annual Physical

March 20th, 2019

by Michelle Andrews, Kaiser Health News

When Beverly Dunn called her new primary care doctor’s office last November to schedule an annual checkup, she assumed her Medicare coverage would pick up most of the tab.

The appointment seemed like a routine physical, and she was pleased that the doctor spent a lot of time with her.

Until she got the bill: $400.

Dunn, 69, called the doctor’s office assuming there was a billing error. But it was no mistake, she was told. Medicare does not cover an annual physical exam.

Dunn, of Austin, Texas, was tripped up by Medicare’s confusing coverage rules. Federal law prohibits the health care program from paying for annual physicals, and patients who get them may be on the hook for the entire amount. But beneficiaries pay nothing for an “annual wellness visit,” which the program covers in full as a preventive service.

“It’s very important that someone, when they call to make an appointment, uses those magic words, ‘annual wellness visit,’” said Leslie Fried, senior director of the Center for Benefits Access at the National Council on Aging. Otherwise, “people think they are making an appointment for an annual wellness visit and it ends up they are having a complete physical.”

An annual physical typically involves an exam by a doctor along with blood work or other tests. The annual wellness visit generally doesn’t include a physical exam, except to check routine measurements such as height, weight and blood pressure.

The focus of the Medicare wellness visit is on preventing disease and disability by coming up with a “personalized prevention plan” for future medical issues based on the beneficiary’s health and risk factors.

At their first wellness visit, patients will often fill out a risk-assessment questionnaire and review their family and personal medical history with their doctor, a nurse practitioner or physician assistant. The clinician will typically create a schedule for the next decade of mammograms, colonoscopies and other screenings and evaluate people for cognitive problems and depression as well as their risk of falls and other safety issues.

They may also talk about advance care planning with beneficiaries to make decisions about what type of medical treatment they want in the future if they can’t make decisions for themselves.

At subsequent annual wellness visits, the doctor and patient will review these issues and check basic measurements. Beneficiaries can also receive other covered preventive services such as flu shots at those visits without charge.

When the Medicare program was established more than 50 years ago, its purpose was to cover the diagnosis and treatment of illness and injury in older people. Preventive services were generally not covered, and routine physical checkups were explicitly excluded, along with routine foot and dental care, eyeglasses and hearing aids.

Over the years, preventive services have gradually been added to the program, and the Affordable Care Act established coverage of the annual wellness visit. Medicare beneficiaries pay nothing as long as their doctor accepts Medicare.

However, if a wellness visit veers beyond the bounds of the specific covered preventive services into diagnosis or treatment — whether at the urging of the doctor or the patient — Medicare beneficiaries will typically owe a copay or other charges. (This can be an issue when people in private plans get preventive care, too. And it can affect patients of all ages. The ACA requires insurers to provide coverage, without a copay, for a range of preventive services, including immunizations. But if a visit goes beyond prevention, the patient may encounter charges.)

And to add more confusion, Medicare beneficiaries can opt for a “Welcome to Medicare” preventive visit within the first year of joining Medicare Part B, which covers physician services.

Meanwhile, some Medicare Advantage plans cover annual physicals for their members free of charge.

Many patients want their doctor to evaluate or treat chronic conditions like diabetes or arthritis at the wellness visit, said Dr. Michael Munger, who chairs the board of the American Academy of Family Physicians. But Medicare generally won’t cover lab work, such as cholesterol screening, unless it’s tied to a specific medical condition.

At Munger’s practice in Overland Park, Kan., staffers routinely ask patients who come in for a wellness visit to sign an “advance beneficiary notice of noncoverage” acknowledging that they understand Medicare may not pay for some of the services they receive.

As long as beneficiaries understand the coverage rules, it’s not generally a problem, Munger said.

“They don’t want to come back for a separate visit, so they just understand that there may be extra charges,” he said.

Beneficiaries may not be the only ones who are unclear about what an annual wellness visit involves, said Munger. Providers may be put off if they think that it’s just another task that adds to their paperwork.

A recent study published in the journal Health Affairs found that in 2015 just over half of practices with eligible Medicare patients didn’t offer the annual wellness visit. That year, 18.8 percent of eligible beneficiaries received an annual wellness visit, the analysis found.

Primary care physicians generally want to see their patients at least once a year, Munger said, but it needn’t be for a complete physical exam.

A wellness visit or even a visit for a sprained ankle could give doctors an opportunity to check in with patients and make sure they’re on track with preventive and other care, Munger said.

When Dunn called the doctor’s office about the $400 bill, she said, the staff told her she had signed papers agreeing to pay whatever Medicare didn’t cover.

Dunn doesn’t dispute that.

“There were lots of papers that I signed,” she said. “But nobody told me I would get a bill for $400. I would remember that.”

In the end, the clinic waived all but $100 of the charge, but warned her that next year she’ll have to pay $300 if she wants an annual physical with that doctor. If she comes in just for an annual wellness visit, she’ll be seen by a physician assistant.

Dunn is considering her options. She would like to stay with her new doctor, who came highly recommended, and she’s worried she might have trouble finding another one just as good who accepts Medicare. But $300 seems steep to her for a checkup.

“This whole thing was so stressful for me,” she said. “I lost sleep for nights. It’s not that I couldn’t afford it, but it didn’t seem right.”

Banking News, Consumer News, Featured Stories, Money News, News

Call To Support Payday Lending Rule

February 13th, 2019

If you need money quickly you may feel tempted to take a payday or an auto title loan. That’s when a lender will offer you cash for a short period of time for an interest rate that could reach 400 percent, or higher. Sixteen states and the District of Columbia outlaw these payday loans.

But the Trump administration team at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) seems to think it’s unnecessary to protect consumers from predatory lending, even though that is supposedly the bureau’s job. In response to the CFPB plan to withdraw protections for borrowers, consumer advocates are calling for support of a payday lending rule that would protect borrowers from the worst abuses.

The payday lending rule was proposed after a five-year study, by the same CFPB, under the Obama administration. Basically, it would prevent lenders from making loans to people who don’t have the money to repay them. Almost half of all payday loan borrowers take out more than 10 payday loans a year and get caught in a debt trap that never seems to end.

The Obama-era CFPB found, among other things, that a typical loan that goes unpaid for two weeks carries an annual percentage rate (APR) of 391 percent.

So at the urging of consumer advocates and consumers, the CFPB created the payday lending rule to protect people from these predatory interest rates. It is scheduled to go into effect in August of 2019. But the new director of the CFPB, Kathy Kraninger, proposed repealing the payday lending rule that also would cover vehicle title loans. The title loans operate like payday loans and often people take out loan after loan to repay the earlier loans.

Before the CFPB can rescind the rule, it needs input from the public. In Washington-speak it is seeking comments. This a good chance to speak up and let the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and your congressperson know what you think.

Lauren Sanders, Associate Director of the National Consumer Law Center, said, “The sudden reversal by the CFPB, which is charged with protecting consumers, flies in the face of extensive evidence of the harm of payday loans. The agency’s proposal is arbitrary and capricious and will certainly face a legal challenge if it is finalized,”

You can contact the CFPB here.

You can contact your U.S. Congressperson here.

You can contact your U.S. Senator here.

Some Like Dating Apps, Others Fear Them

February 13th, 2019

Does it come as a surprise that people who use dating apps like them, and people who don’t use the apps fear them? That’s what You.gov.com found. People who use dating apps said they’re “interesting,” “convenient,” and “fun.” Those who’ve never used a dating app describe them as “dangerous” and “pointless.”

Interestingly, an almost equal percentage of users and non-users say online dating apps are “shallow.” And more than a quarter of the users surveyed find them “exhausting.”

Nearly a third of Americans think dating apps have killed romance and two-thirds of Americans say they would rather find a partner in a more romantic way, without using an app.

The survey also found that Millennials and Gen-X’ers are more likely to use a dating app than older Americans.

Yet Statista points out that thanks to widely popular Tinder app, its owner Match Group’s income grew by 30 percent, earning $173 billion over the past twelve months.

And despite the generational divide, Tinder added 1.25 million subscribers in the last twelve months. Its impressive subscriber base stands at 4.35 million people and growing.

The app is most popular in English-speaking countries including the United States, Canada and Great Britain.

Statista’s info-graphic below gives a clear picture of who uses dating apps, who doesn’t and what they think about them.

If you’re older, Ira H. Silverman’s post about the challenges older guys face when they try to meet when online is worth a read.

You will find more infographics at Statista

55 Plus News, Featured Stories, First Person, Good Read

Older Guys Face Online Dating Barriers

January 20th, 2019

by Ira H. Silverman

The great philosopher, Baseball Hall of Famer Yogi Berra, once famously said: “You’ve got to be very careful if you don’t know where you are going, because you might not get there.”

Unfortunately, guys, when it comes to online dating, even knowing where you go might not get you there. My target group is women my age, which is AARP- eligible. The years have taught them to be self-protective, which makes sense, but I’ve encountered so many barriers and obstacles that sometimes I wonder if the trip is worth the effort.

If I sound frustrated, here’s why. I’ve spent a decade trying to find a geographically and age-compatible woman I can laugh and talk with, whose outlook on life, values and interests are similar to mine, and who has the time and interest to work on a long-term relationship. So far, no luck. But along the way I’ve learned a lot.

So, gentlemen, I am here to help and enlighten you and maybe even get you to break through the online dating barriers and reach your destination.

WHERE TO BEGIN

I have tried more than a half-dozen sites including Plenty of Fish and OkCupid, which you can use for free. Others like New Beginnings, Jdate, Match.com, Tinder, OurTime and Elite Singles require membership fees.

If you’re a guy who’s new to online dating, I’d suggest you try the two free sites for a few months before committing to a mainstream pay site. But even before that, you might want to research the increasing number of special-interest sites that have cropped up. Trek Passions caters to fans of science fiction. My420Mate attracts marijuana users. Then there’s Clown Dating. If you’re a sailor you might try Sea Captain Date. If you want someone way out there, why not go for Paranormal Date? There are several sites for travel lovers.

The possibilities are endless.

THE PITFALLS ALONG THE WAY

I don’t claim to understand how women think. But my personal research, trial and error, deep conversations and strong intuition have helped me understand why it is so difficult to make a meaningful connection with a woman my age via online dating sites.

As I get older, the women the sites match me with are obviously getting older, too. That means more women who are widowed rather than divorced, and only rarely women who have never married or are separated.

Most of the widowed candidates say that they had long, loving marriages. It often appears they still miss their husbands, whether their loss occurred two years ago, or two decades.

As for the divorced contenders, whether their marriages ended recently or years ago, they often still carry feelings of heartbreak, anxiety, and betrayal. Some have lost respect for men.

This, gentlemen, is the state of mind we can find when we join an online dating site.

SO WHY ARE THESE WOMEN ON DATING SITES IN THE FIRST PLACE?

I believe a lot of women use an online dating site because one or more influential people in their lives convinced them that they had to “get back out there again.” Maybe it was one or more of their girlfriends, a sister or cousin, their adult children, a co-worker or even a neighbor.

Which brings me to another Yogi-ism: “If the people don’t want to come out to the ballpark, nobody’s going to stop them.”

If these women are not truly motivated or excited about dating or establishing an ongoing relationship, they’re not likely to change their minds.

The truth is that virtually all of the women whom I have met through a dating site have, out of necessity, put a great deal of time, thought and effort into building full and satisfying lives for themselves without including a man in the mix.

These women surround themselves with family members, friends and pets. They either work full or part-time or volunteer for something worthwhile. Many babysit for their grandchildren whenever they can. They belong to clubs and organizations and enjoy exercising and working out.

A lot of them travel as often as possible and frequently take advantage of culture and arts opportunities.

In addition to the time that these women spend with their adult children, grandkids and dogs and cats, they almost always have separate groups of women with whom they have dinner and lunch on a regular basis. Others have set groups of friends for tennis, or mah-jongg or bowling. And some may have regular movie, concert or theater nights with their girlfriends.

Men On The Other Hand

Conversely, most men, if they’re lucky, have two or at most three close friends in their lives. Sure, there’s the weekly poker night or hockey game, but they certainly don’t travel around in packs or with a posse.

My final bit of wisdom about online dating for older guys comes as a warning. If you notice that a woman you have met online recently has difficulty, right from the start, replying to written messages in a timely fashion, making phone calls as promised or clearing time in her schedule to meet in person, don’t expect that she will change going forward.

Remember, if you have no expectations, you’ll have no disappointments. But hey. I’m an optimist and I keep trying. You should, too. For all of the obstacles to online dating, when the right people connect, lightning can strike.

Ira H. Silverman is known as The Connector. Over the past 45 years, he has been a public relations agency owner, a sports and celebrity agent, a special events planner and producer, and a marketer and fundraiser for not-for-profit foundations. He lives on Long Island, NY.

Consumer News, Featured Stories, Money News, News

Solar Roof Panels Pay Off

January 11th, 2019

by Mike Katz

Solar roof panels pay off for us and I’m shocked that my block is not filled with solar panel systems. Our flat roofs are perfect and yet only one neighbor, so far, has gone solar to generate his own electricity.

We own a brownstone in Park Slope, Brooklyn, in the Landmark District. In 2015 we started thinking about installing a solar panel system to provide electricity for our apartment and the ground floor unit we rent out. But before I jumped into it, I wanted to make sure that the jump to solar could save us money as well as improve our green footprint.

Community Board 6 seemed tuned in to our thoughts when they and the City University of New York sponsored a program called Brooklyn Solarize. They vetted installers and held a presentation. My wife and I attended and it sounded pretty good.

After the meeting we reached out to two installers and asked them to take a look at our house. They made proposals and we picked Quixotic Systems, Inc., because we felt it was the best fit. The installer handled all the details including the permits and the application for tax rebates.

They started with Con Edison, our utility, to get permission to install and then moved on to the New York City Department of Buildings (DOB) for a permit. Because we are landmarked, they also had to file a request for a permit from the NYC Landmarks Commission (LC).

The installation required inspections by the DOB, the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission and the fire department. The installers scheduled the appointments, which took awhile to get.

The DOB inspected twice, after the panels were installed, and Con Edison came out again. We were happy to be inspected. We wanted to make sure the system met all the standards and requirements.

Con Edison performed the final step. They installed a “net meter” that measures the two-way street of solar generation. It goes forward when you make less electricity than you use and backward when you make more. In our case, there are months in the spring and summer when we make more electricity than we use and months in the fall and winter when we use more than we make. Overall, we are net buyers of electricity. But I’m getting ahead of myself here.

Our location in a Landmark District was important. Landmarks does not permit modern improvements to be seen from the street. You can see our roof from two streets. That meant that our panels could not be angled for optimal production. In addition, the fire department requires a six-foot-wide free zone from the front to the back of the roof.

Thanks to tax credits, the actual cost to us for the system was a fraction of the overall cost. We benefited from a 30 percent federal tax credit, 20 percent from New York State up to a maximum of $5,000, and a New York City property tax abatement of 20 percent granted over four years.

We paid cash and the tax credits didn’t come instantly. We got our federal credit with the filing of our 2016 tax return and it took two years to claim credit for the New York State credit on our tax returns. The city automatically deducts our abatement from our property taxes every year. We could have financed the system and bought electricity from our installation at a discount. But we chose to pay up front.

The cost:

We paid a little more than $32,000 for 16 solar panels, each with a capacity of 300 watts, and a SolarEdge inverter that converts direct current or DC electricity to alternating current or AC, which we use to run our appliances.

The tax credits added up to $22,453 and because we rent part of our house, we received depreciation tax benefits of almost $2,000. So the actual cost to us was $7,931.

That’s really good when consider that our system generated 4.7 megawatt hours in 2017 and 4.6 megawatt hours in 2018.

In our case, the cost per kilowatt hour is about 22 cents. In 2017 we saved $1,034 and in 2018 we saved $1,012. We modified our electrical panels, removing 4 panels and routing all our circuits into one panel with one meter. The modification results in savings of $1,440 in fixed costs per year.

So our annual savings with the solar panels are about $2,500 per year. The payback period for the system is a little more than three years.

A word of caution:

We know that our installer is reputable. We need them. If anything goes wrong, they have to fix it. The installation comes with warranties. Someone has to be there to fulfill those promises. I’ve been to my installer’s place of business. I know they monitor my installation just as I do. Our inverter communicates with the manufacturer and our installer via the internet. When a communication breakdown caused a failure of my network, the installer got in touch and helped us reestablish communication.

You also need to feel confident that they are using quality components. Our system has been solid, knock on wood.

Another word of caution:

You will get estimates about the benefit you can expect. Be skeptical of those estimates. I got estimates of 5 to 6 megawatt hours per year for the same configuration that I ultimately installed. You see how that estimate worked out. I got estimates of dollar benefits based on 29 cents per kilowatt hour cost. My actual cost is 22 cents per kilowatt hour. Conditions at your site can cause efficiency to be less than advertised. I have a giant tree that partially blocks the sun, and in 2018 we had 157 days of rain. The historical average is 121.

A word of encouragement:

If your system costs $25,000; your cost is $7,500. If you save $1,100 per year, your payback period is 6.82 years. That means that your investment earns 14.7 percent each year. That’s not too bad. If you rent out a portion of your house, you can depreciate the system and lower the cost even more.

I’m really happy that we installed the system. If I had it to do over again, I would make the system bigger by using higher capacity panels and adding a couple more of them. For the last two years, I bought 2.8 and 3.3 megawatt hours. I would love it if my system over-produced by a little. I would consider a battery system and go off the grid. Battery systems are not legal in New York as I write this, but a bill has been introduced in the legislature to legalize them.

For now, in addition to the savings, I get to be smug about my dainty carbon footprint. And by the way, if you look at my down-to-the-dollar figures in this report and guess that I’m an accountant, you’d be right. A green accountant with a solar roof.

Banking News, Consumer News, Featured Stories, Money News, News, Scam News

Wells Fargo Will Pay Out More Money

December 28th, 2018

You may benefit from the latest Wells Fargo settlement. The bank will pay $575 million to settle a lawsuit with all 50 state attorneys general and the District of Columbia. The latest settlement deals with retail practices where employees opened 3.5 million fake accounts and caused consumers to pay fees for services they never requested. The settlement also covers sales of sketchy auto collateral protection insurance (“CPI”), Guaranteed Asset/Auto Protection (“GAP”), and a mortgage interest rate lock.

Wells Fargo has been ordered to repay more $1.2 billion since 2015 because of practices that cheated consumers. The bank has worked to put that chapter of its history behind it and this settlement is the latest step.

Tim Sloan, Chief Executive Officer and President of Wells Fargo, said, “This agreement underscores our serious commitment to making things right in regard to past issues as we work to build a better bank,”

California will get more than a quarter of the settlement money because it’s the bank’s home state and most of its customer live there.

California Attorney General Javier Beccera called the bank’s behavior “disgraceful.” He said, “Wells Fargo customers entrusted their bank with their livelihood, their dreams, and their savings for the future. Instead of safeguarding its customers, Wells Fargo exploited them.”

In addition to the payout, Wells Fargo will:

Create and maintain a website that lays out the issues for consumers and explains how to receive restitution payments.

Create a designated team to handle the complaints and help consumers get what they need.

Since 2015 many consumers have gotten restitution through settlements Wells Fargo negotiated with the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Comptroller of the Currency, and through class action lawsuits.

The new settlement should help consumers who have not yet benefited from legal action. Wells Fargo set up a hotline that will operate 24/7: 1-877-924-8697.

Featured Stories, Latest News, News, Scam News

Tax Refund Scam Uses Inland Revenue

December 28th, 2018

Scammers sending email about a mystery tax refund keep trying to bait us. The latest tax refund email phishing scam popped into our inbox as a message from the “Inland Revenue Agency” claiming that money awaiting us in our account. All we had to do was click “here to continue.”

First of all, the United States doesn’t have an Inland Revenue Agency. A careful read shows you this purports to be from New Zealand’s tax agency, supposedly a VAT tax refund that you’re due. But many of us just read “refund.” And here the U.S. Internal Revenue Service advice still applies: the IRS warns that we should not click on any links in the phishing scam emails.

An IRS alert says there is a “surge of fraudulent emails impersonating the IRS . . . as bait to entice users to open documents containing malware.”

Here’s the danger: malware can steal personal information, including your Social Security number, stored in your computer and this particular type of malware is difficult to delete, according to the IRS.

Once the criminals get your personal information they can file a fake W-2 in your name and claim your tax refund and other benefits. They are also looking for freelancers and small business Employer Identification Numbers.

IRS Commissioner Chuck Rettig said, “. . . as tax season approaches, the IRS and the Security Summit partners continue to warn employers to be on the lookout for emails asking for sensitive W-2 information, a dangerous scheme aimed at payroll and human resource offices.”

The problem is you often don’t know something is amiss until you discover situations like these:

More than one tax return was filed using your SSN or your Employer Identification Number.
You learn that you owe additional tax, refund offset or have had collection actions taken against you for a year you did not file a tax return.
IRS records indicate you received wages or other income from an employer for whom you did not work.
Extensions to file are rejected because a return with your information is already on record.
You don’t receive expected correspondence from the IRS because the thief changed your address.

The IRS never sends unsolicited emails to consumers or contacts them by phone. And New Zealand’s IRA probably doesn’t, either. So the best thing to do is ignore the temptation to click on the link and delete the scam phishing email.

You can also report it to phishing@irs.gov and help investigators keep track of the scammers.

Books, Featured Stories

Seriously Good Audiobooks

December 26th, 2018

by Barbara Nevins Taylor

If you’re looking for seriously good audiobooks, I’ve got a some solid recommendations to keep you interested and entertained. My list of audiobooks runs from good contemporary literature to detective and thriller novels, and the audiobooks I recommend have excellent narrators who help turn the books into movies in the mind.

Washington Black by Esi Edugyan deservedly sits atop many best book lists of 2018. The audiobook, narrated by Dion Graham, lifts it to another level. The story of George Washington Black, born a slave, begins in Barbados and the terror and cruelty of slavery will make you wince. Yet there is always something hopeful about Washington, even as the truly evil master and life itself seem to conspire against him. Ultimately this is a story of a boy, a young man finding himself and his gifts against all odds, but I won’t give the plot away or spoil the story as it unfolds for you. Dion Graham gives a deeply felt performance as Washington and the many characters who inhabit his life. If you listen to one good book, choose “Washington Black“.

The Cuckoo’s Calling by Robert Galbraith — actually J.K. Rowling — and narrated by Robert Glenister got me hooked on the British detective Cormoran Strike. I’m late to this party. The first book was published in 2013 and it was so good that critics and fans tried to figure out who this writer Galbraith was.

Rowling says on her website that she wanted to establish Galbraith as a credible crime writer in “his own right.” She accomplished that right off the bat. The intricate plot, great characters and good writing make it an addictive listen.

Her hero Cormoran Strike, a former military police officer, lost part of his leg in Afghanistan. When we meet him in the first book in the series, he is beginning a new chapter in his life. Almost immediately, we feel lucky to have discovered his company. Robert Glenister’s thick Cornish accent takes a bit of adjusting, but it sounds just right pretty quickly.

Strike and his new assistant, Robin Ellacott, share a sizzle that they try to ignore. The rich backstories of both characters make them likable people who pop from the page. But there is so much more. The plot and the investigation into the death of a supermodel in The Cuckoo’s Calling take unexpected turn after turn. Just when you think you might have figured it out, there is the surprise.

The Silkworm

I liked The Cuckoo’s Calling so much that I wanted more, so I downloaded The Silkworm and quickly found myself gripped by another intricate plot. The Silkworm, again narrated by Robert Glenister, takes us into the world of contemporary publishing. When a fantasy writer disappears, his wife calls upon Strike to help find him. Strike continues to work against the odds and the relationship with Robin gets better and better. But she has a fiancé and the tension there continues.

In the meantime, the plot moves in and out of the literary world filled with egocentric characters and almost everything that happens seems surprising.

Wrecked: An IQ Novel, by Joe Ide and narrated by Sullivan Jones, is distinctly American, unique and entertaining. It’s the third novel in the series about Isiah Quintabe, a brainy young detective who takes payment from his cash-poor Long Beach, California neighbors in casseroles and ugly hand-knitted sweaters.

The set-up to the plot, which involves former U.S. soldier-torturers from Abu Ghraib prison in Afghanistan, is funny in the twisted way that makes Carl Hiassen’s Florida books great. Ide’s stories are California all the way and Sullivan Jones does a brilliant job. His Isiah is as a real as a guest on a Trevor Noah show, and all the other characters sound and feel like contemporary Americans.

Warlight, by Michael Ondaatjie, the author of The English Patient, pulls you into the life of a family in 1945 post-World War II London, just as the parents are about to disappear. The mother and father are off to Singapore for a reason that’s not clear to 14-year-old Nathaniel Williams, who tells the story, and his sister, 16-year-old Rachel. A man, a friend of their mother, will stay with them in their house and supervise.

The children think he and the friends who populate the house at night, in a dim half-light, are criminals and they’re right. They nickname their guardian “The Moth.” His friend, who fixes greyhound races, they call “The Darter.”

Steve West narrates the atmospheric prose perfectly as the story explores memory and Nathaniel’s coming of age. I found myself listening compulsively on this journey of discovery with Nathaniel who learns no one is quite who they say they are. Turns out, his mother Rose worked as a spy, and his parents didn’t go where they said they were going, or maybe his mother didn’t. A harrowing manhunt for Rose puts the children in danger and your heart beats faster as you try to escape with them and figure out what’s happening.

In the second half of the book, Nathaniel, now 28, tries to piece together the bits of his mother’s life. His journey and research turn up surprises that keep you with him. “No one really understands another’s life or even death,” Nathaniel realizes. That is something that those of us who’ve tried to figure out a parent’s mysterious life will understand.

Consumer News, Featured Stories, Latest News, Money News, News, Scam News

Why Put A Credit Freeze Your Credit Report?

December 20th, 2018

Why freeze your credit report? A credit or security freeze on your credit report helps to protect you from identity theft and blocks anyone who tries to open a credit account in your name. You can now request a free credit freeze from the three major credit reporting bureaus, Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion.

A law requiring credit reporting agencies to freeze your credit for free went into effect on September 21. Consumer advocates called for the action after the Equifax security breach that exposed the personal information of 145.5 million people, most of the Americans.

Congress bundled the law into Republican legislation called the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief and Consumer Protection Act. That law also scaled back some of the Dodd-Frank protections for consumers enacted after the 2008 financial crisis. But this one consumer-friendly provision may turn out to work in your favor.

Here’s what you need to know:

A credit freeze does not affect your credit.
You can still apply for a new credit card or ask for credit for something else. But you’ll have to give approval for a credit check.
You can unfreeze your credit report at any time.
It will still allow your creditors to review the report. But others will have to get your permission to see it. That means you have the control.

The new law also allows you to ask a credit reporting bureau to freeze your child’s account for free. This again makes sense, because thieves have stolen children’s identities and used their Social Security numbers to open credit card accounts, buy luxury goods, and even take out mortgages.

The new law also allows you to put a year-long fraud alert on your credit report, or your child’s credit report.

How do you put a freeze on your credit report? Simple.

Contact:

Experian

TransUnion

Equifax

You can also help to protect your identity and your credit by requesting a free credit report at annualcreditreport.com. You can get a free credit report from each of the credit reporting bureaus once a year.

All 55 Plus, Featured Stories, Medicare

Should You Choose Medicare Advantage?

November 11th, 2018

Medicare Advantage may seem like an appealing choice, but you may find the insurer will refuse to pay, or will deny treatment and care you need. A new report by the Office of Inspector General (OIG) of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) found that Medicare Advantage plans have a built-in financial incentive for denying service.

Medicare Advantage May Not Give You The Care You Need — Photo Courtesy U.S. Military Healthcare, photo by Jacob Sippel

The OIG report hits home now because open enrollment for Medicare starts October 15 and runs until December 7, 2018 and you have an opportunity to switch plans and choose Medicare Advantage. It’s also significant because if you have it and you want to get out of it, you won’t be able to join the popular Medicare Part F Medigap plan, starting in 2020. Read more about this below.

For now the choice you make could impact your health.

Medicare Advantage May Not Give You Treatment You Need — Photo by Collusor, Courtesy Pixabay

Twenty million people enrolled in Medicare Advantage plans in 2018. These plans, run by private companies, seem attractive because they cover a wide-range of service for inclusive fees. They do require doctor referrals and often you must use the doctors or services within the network.

Investigators says these private Medicare Advantage Organizations (MAOs) often “…inappropriately deny access to services and payment in an attempt to increase their profits. An MAO that inappropriately denies authorization of services for beneficiaries, or payments to health care providers, may contribute to physical or financial harm and also misuses Medicare Program dollars that CMS paid for beneficiary healthcare.”

The Medicare Advantage plans get paid for each person they sign up, not for the care or services people receive. So once you’re enrolled, there’s no incentive for delivering what you need.

Here’s what happens: Your medical problem requires a procedure, or a referral. Your Medicare Advantage plan turns you down. Most people don’t appeal. But the OIG discovered that between 2014 and 2016, when people did appeal, they were successful 75 percent of the time. That adds up to 216,000 denials overturned each year. In addition, more denials were overturned by people higher up in the Medicare Advantage organizations. So some people in these insurance companies are making bad decisions.

That means more people should appeal these denials. The appeal rate is just 1 percent. That means a lot of people are not getting the care they need and deserve and have paid for, and that’s not only costly but potentially dangerous.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) recognize the problem. In 2015, it cited 45 percent of the Medicare Advantage companies with improper denials or for sending denial letters with incomplete or incorrect information.

The inspector general called for more oversight by CMS. But for people making choices right now, you might want to think twice about a Medicare Advantage plan and opt for Medigap or supplemental insurance called Part F by Medicare.

Plan F is popular with Baby Boomers because it picks up the 20 percent of the bill Medicare Part B doesn’t cover. Rates are set locally depending upon where you live. Medicare recipients pay $149 in a place like Ft. Worth, Texas and as much as $336 in Miami, Florida, according to Forbes. Part F also covers 80 percent of your health care if you become ill during foreign travel.

But guess what?

Photo by the Architect of the Capitol, Public Domain

Congress in 2015 passed a law that does away with Part F as of 2020 as a way of reducing the budget deficit. Why didn’t we complain?

If you have Part F now, you won’t lose it. But anyone who signs up in the future won’t be able to enroll as of 2020.

Every time, I write one of these healthcare stories I remember the sheep that we saw in Sardinia. Take a look.

Tree Of Life Synagogue Rabbi: “We Deserve Better”

October 27th, 2018 1 Comment

by Barbara Nevins Taylor

Rabbi Jeffrey Meyers of the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh wrote an essay for his congregation last July. He worried about gun violence, the treatment of immigrants and the failure of our leaders. He might have added the ugly atmosphere that fosters anti-Semitism. But then, he couldn’t have possibly imagined what would happen in his synagogue three months later. Who could?

Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action – a gun control advocacy group – brought it to my attention. Here’s an excerpt…

“Unless there is a dramatic turnaround in the mid-term elections, I fear that that the status quo will remain unchanged, and school shootings will resume. I shouldn’t have to include in my daily morning prayers that God should watch over my wife and daughter, both teachers, and keep them safe. Where are our leaders?” — Rabbi Jeffrey Meyers

I hope you will read the rest. Please think, when you do, about what we need to do as a nation to come together, to stop the violence, and tune out the self-serving platitudes of so-called leaders including President Trump who stir division for their political advantage and demonstrate that they care nothing for our country.

We Deserve Better

by Jeffrey Meyers, July 19, 2018

Current news recycles at a dizzying pace, with the important topic of yesterday buried beneath the freshest catch of the day. The television talking heads pick over each and every juicy tidbit like vultures over carrion. Just when you thought they were done, they find more. Remember the Thai soccer team rescue? Old news. The push by the students from Parkland, Florida to enact safer schools?

Now that schools are closed for the summer, apparently school safety is not important, as shooters are finding other valuable sites. It is remarkable that the horror of immigrant children being separated from their parents continues to be newsworthy.

I recall seeing a post not long ago that rather accurately describes the life cycle of news, and I paraphrase to the best of my recollection: Tragic Event – Thoughts and Prayers – Call to Action by our Elected Leaders – Hang Wringing – Next News Event.

Rabban Gamliel, who lived during the latter part of the Second Century, observed the following: Be wary of the authorities! They do not befriend anyone unless it serves their own needs. They appear as a friend when it is to their advantage, but do not stand by a person in his hour of need. How insightful was he, that he really understood an essential truth about the government.

Despite continuous calls for sensible gun control and mental health care, our elected leaders in Washington knew that it would fade away in time. Unless there is a dramatic turnaround in the mid-term elections, I fear that that the status quo will remain unchanged, and school shootings will resume.

I shouldn’t have to include in my daily morning prayers that God should watch over my wife and daughter, both teachers, and keep them safe. Where are our leaders?

Immigration advocates were wise in bringing the separation of parents and children to the courts, because we have seen legal decisions pushing our leaders to respond in a timely manner. What happens to the children whose parents were deported?

There must be a better system, and I would have hoped that bright minds in Washington, D.C., could sit down and work out a solution that takes into account all of the concerns that have been raised.

Alas, inaction once again. Soon enough those who are up for re-election will be on the campaign trail, seeking your dollars and your support. Will you ask them the hard questions, and tell them that you will hold them to their words, or that they should seek a different sort of employment?

Will the new freshmen class of Congress learn to just yes us continually until the roar fades to a whimper, which is apparently rule #2 in the Congressional handbook? We all know rule #1, and look where that has gotten us to. Our school students deserve better. Immigrant families deserve better. We deserve better.

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